NPP Elections Director worried over party indiscipline

New Patriotic Party Director of Elections, Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah, says he is dismayed at the level of indiscipline plaguing the party over pre-conference processes.

The latest of such, according to him, is a threat by a party youth who is warning the NPP to restore Mr. Paul Afoko as a candidate in the race for party chairman or forget plans to hold its national delegates’ conference in Tamale because he would not allow it.

Adjei-Mensah Korsah told Radio Gold on Thursday that agitations over the earlier disqualification or the indefinite freeze of some national executive office seekers are needless, and perpetrators must be reined in.

Five applicants who were initially disqualified from the race have since been restored, leaving the candidature of Paul Afoko who the party says is investigating following a petition filed against him.

On Wednesday, the NPP national vetting committee said in a report that it had reviewed its earlier decision following a petition by the affected candidates and that Mr. Fred Amankwa-Sarfo, Hajia Fati Amadu, Mrs. Philomena Serwaa Akoto Sam, Alhaji Kamal-Deen Abdulai and Charles Adu-Gyamfi have been cleared to contest the national elections scheduled to take place on 12th April 2014.

“In the case of Mr. Paul Afoko, the decision to suspend the balloting of all contestants for the position of National Chairman still stands until investigations have been completed,” the party has said.

The development has seen a number of party bigwigs faulted each other over the propriety or otherwise of the vetting committee’s composition and decisions, but Martin Adjei-Mensah says the vetting committee cannot be stampeded in its work and the impression should not be created that the committee of reputable individuals does not know what it is about. It is, therefore, the height of impudence for anyone to suggest that the party can go to conference only on one man’s terms.

He said Paul Afoko and other contestants whose supporters are needlessly stoking the fires, must rein in their supporters so the process can be consummated.